op here.you seemed prejudiced in your post due to some content of loci. there are reasons i'm including "why law" that i explained in previous posts.

Look, you posted on here asking for advice. That advice has been pretty unanimous, but you seem intent on ignoring it, so there is really not much else to say except to wish you luck with your admissions cycle.

Anonymous User wrote:i cut down on some stuff, here is the updated one. please comment

Your first full paragraph is worse than useless: it's poorly written. Were I an adcomm otherwise inclined to admit you, I would have second thoughts after reading your first paragraph. Seriously, delete the paragraph. Or don't send this at all.

curious about this. it may sound generic without context (isn't exactly that), but what other exactly is wrong with it?

It's poorly written. Like, really, really poorly written. I'm not going to walk you through all the problems with it.

I strongly advise you to spend some time with a writing tutor before law school. In the legal world, there's a negative stereotype about engineers who go to law schoolâ€”namely, that engineers get high LSAT scores but can't write. For that reason, I think that engineers need to be especially vigilant about writing well. Even a hint of poor writing in a cover letter or a writing sample will confirm the biases of people who make hiring decisions.

Good luck.

OP, you fell into a trap many people fall into when you wrote this: you mired it in uselessly flowery language, complex sentence structures that make it confusing to the point of frustrating your reader with your writing style, and everything you wrote is so objectively generic that I'm actually a little disappointed with you forcing me to read through it in considering your application. It does nothing to make you a more attractive candidate to law school, even if you think it answers some "why law" question in your mind.

Why do you keep insisting on keeping the exact language that people are telling you to cut? It's generic, badly written, and pointless. Just drop it.

[Removed "outing" info per OP's request. No way to remove the same exact information from every one of OP's draft LOCI, but there's no way adcomms have learned how to use the search function on this forum.]

Last edited by cavalier1138 on Sun Apr 30, 2017 8:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.

OP, I won't quote your loci because you asked me not to.You are not unusual. Your situation is not unusual. It is most certainly NOT"highly unusual." There are hundreds of applicants every cycle in your shoes. If you attend an ASD at literally any accredited law school in the US, you will realize this.

There are two reasons you should omit that first paragraph. First, you DO NOT need to convince adcoms that you really want to go to law school. The reason I offered you a tinfoil hat is that you need to stop listening to the "voices" that are telling you that adcoms read your app, laughed, and then said "surely s/he isn't serious about law school."Second, that paragraph makes you sound like an insufferable douche with an incurable case of special snowflake syndrome. It WILL NOT help you. It may HURT you.If you are sending it somewhere other than Yale, they will likely ding you because nobody wants to deal with that for 3 years. If you send it to Yale, they will likely reject you because it's almost May and their quota of insufferable students has been met a long time ago.*

*This is sarcasm, and is no way indicative of my thoughts towards Yale or its students.

thanks for the comment about unusual applicants. i've described my work history and it seems you suggest that there are several people with that type of work history. on these forums i have literally seen almost none. my case is one of a transition from an already established career so i don't think of my case as a special snowflake but thought that explaining the motivation for transitioning was applicable here. in any case i can pm to know more details if someone has really strong opinions about this.

thanks for the comment about unusual applicants. i've described my work history and it seems you suggest that there are several people with that type of work history. on these forums i have literally seen almost none. my case is one of a transition from an already established career so i don't think of my case as a special snowflake but thought that explaining the motivation for transitioning was applicable here. in any case i can pm to know more details if someone has really strong opinions about this.

You are welcome. You actually have met several people on these forums with similar background to yours. We just don't announce it. I am not an adcom and yet I have read dozens of PS/DS/addenda, etc. that describe similar situations.Also, if you want to pm me you can, if you think it will help you.

Last edited by B90 on Sun Apr 30, 2017 6:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

OP, if you were going to explain "why law," as a practicing lawyer, here are the things that don't work for me: your language about valuing "equality, fairness, and improved opportunity" is incredibly vague. Who doesn't value these things? What does valuing these things have to do with the resources available here but not where you grew up? How exactly do you think a career in government/public service will help you ensure equality/fairness/etc.? What kind of job do you actually envision doing?

The problem is that you will need to go into more detail to answer these things, more detail than a LOCI can really bear. Which is because a LOCI isn't intended to answer "why law." It's not really a chance to redo things that weren't in your original application; it's literally just to say "I am really interested in your school" (I also think some variant of "if accepted, I will attend" would be useful), and if you've had any new accomplishments, to update the school on that.

rpupkin wrote:No one will read this. If your LOCI is longer than five or six sentences, it's too long.

Question about this: If you've had significant work experience since the time of your applications, how can you possibly reiterate your love for the school AND update on what's new with you in 5 or 6 sentences?

Nobody has more than 6 sentences worth of extra work experience in less than a year. Hell, no one has that in more than a year.

You seem to be unaware of the unique programs and fellowships available post-undergrad, but I certainly have gained significant experience since December. Happy to discuss via PM if you'd like.

rpupkin wrote:No one will read this. If your LOCI is longer than five or six sentences, it's too long.

Question about this: If you've had significant work experience since the time of your applications, how can you possibly reiterate your love for the school AND update on what's new with you in 5 or 6 sentences?

Nobody has more than 6 sentences worth of extra work experience in less than a year. Hell, no one has that in more than a year.

You seem to be unaware of the unique programs and fellowships available post-undergrad, but I certainly have gained significant experience since December. Happy to discuss via PM if you'd like.

Yes, I'm aware that there are various programs and fellowships available post-undergrad. If you're devoting more than a short paragraph to explaining them, you're doing it wrong.

As Nony and others have pointed out, the purpose of an LOCI is to update with new info and some version of "if admitted, I will attend." Yours reads like an excerpt from a PS. Not trying to be mean at all...

rpupkin wrote:No one will read this. If your LOCI is longer than five or six sentences, it's too long.

Question about this: If you've had significant work experience since the time of your applications, how can you possibly reiterate your love for the school AND update on what's new with you in 5 or 6 sentences?

Nobody has more than 6 sentences worth of extra work experience in less than a year. Hell, no one has that in more than a year.

You seem to be unaware of the unique programs and fellowships available post-undergrad, but I certainly have gained significant experience since December. Happy to discuss via PM if you'd like.

I'm quite aware of them. I'm also aware that describing these programs takes less than 6 sentences, even if you're really, really proud of yourself for getting one (edited for stupid autocorrect). A LOCI/addendum isn't supposed to be a blow-by-blow account of what you've been doing since your application. If there's an update, you can say, "Since applying, I have received [X] fellowship for [type of work]. Since then, I have been gaining valuable work experience in [field]."

If the fellowship is really that interesting, they'll probably already know about it or take a second to look it up.

Last edited by cavalier1138 on Mon May 01, 2017 6:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

Anonymous User wrote:for the a.nony mouse post, i get that comprehensive "why law" can't be covered in a brief letter.

This doesn't address any of the issues I had with what your proposed LOCI actually says. Since it can't be covered in a brief letter, the answer is not to provide vague platitudes that make it sound like you don't actually know "why law."

So I guess I don't understand what kind of response you were looking for in this thread?

cavalier1138 wrote:I'm quite aware of them. I'm also aware that describing these programs takes less than 6 sentences, even if you're really, really proud of yourself for getting on. A LOCI/addendum isn't supposed to be a blow-by-blow account of what you've been doing since your application. If there's an update, you can say, "Since applying, I have received [X] fellowship for [type of work]. Since then, I have been gaining valuable work experience in [field]."

Yeah, I have to agree with this. You could even replace cav's second sentence with 2 specific sentences describing the experience you're getting (such as "researching in libraries x & y," "presenting results at conferences 1, 2, and 3"). That's still one paragraph of three sentences and more than sufficient.

for the a.nony mouse post, i get that comprehensive "why law" can't be covered in a brief letter. the school tho welcomes any supplemental material. the first para was saying that i have come to value them more due to the experiences not that one didn't value them at all. it doesn't provide much details but it's not entirely generic when put together in the context of my app material and PS where i had described these values more in detail. the 3 lines here in the first para were mainly connecting the dots for the first time in the app material for a why law and they are not that vague when put in the context of full app review, which is done by ad com when reviewing wl applicants. i agree a full why law describing actual job career details after law isn't exactly within loci's scope and is much longer.

B90 wrote:You actually have met several people on these forums with similar background to yours. We just don't announce it.

who here is esp if you think it's not unusual.not many people at say nyu who're 40s, STEM, 20+ years work-ex in away from legal career path industry, leave six figure income?

*please don't quote

Given the fact that you are posting anonymously, you should understand that people do not want to "out" themselves.I am not going to name names. You need to give others the same respect and consideration you demand for yourself.

Since you are being obtuse, I will spell it out for you. Although my background is not STEM, I have met dozens of people in their late 30s,40s and 50s with Phds in STEM subjects who are considering leaving their 6 figure job to attend law school. How did I meet them? A few I "met" online, but most I was introduced to in person because I have experience advising/mentoring people in that situation. In case you happen to be a woman, I have met women in your situation as well, just in case you think gender makes you usual.

Basically, things exist even though you are not aware of them.

You seem to be stuck in the belief that adcoms are suspicious of your intentions and you were WL because they want you to prove that you are really serious about the law and deserving of becoming a member of our esteemed profession. Trust me, adcoms ARE HUMAN. Sure, they have their quirks but they are neither delusional nor psychotic.

that's fine, that's your take on it. if asking a question which you suggested you know a great deal about makes one obtuse, then good luck. i'm fine with respecting any info you don't want to say. it also seems you are not in that age group yet that you think is not unusual even tho you have a jd you are younger and there is a difference between meeting dozens of people who may have applied to hundreds of schools than one school having a non-significant percentage of such demographic for it to be common at that school. at any rate, pm would be probably be better to discuss that.

e. please not quote the previous post

Last edited by Anonymous User on Mon May 01, 2017 9:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

OP, how about this: your situation is not unusual enough to justify putting a generic and unhelpful paragraph about why you're going to law school in this LOCI. You're getting too hung up on being different. You may be less common than some kinds of applicants, but you're not unheard of.

Heck, if you really want to answer "why law?" then just come flat out and say so directly. "You may be wondering why I want to go to law school after having invested so much time in my current career. I have valued my experience as x for [reasons]. However, seeing/experiencing [something SPECIFIC about inequality - is it resource allocation? Since you mentioned the scarcity of resources where you grew up. But also WHAT KIND of resources specifically? Natural, governmental, educational?] has convinced me that I can do more to address inequitable distribution of resources with a JD, by [identify something specific you think lawyers can do in this context that STEM people can't]." (I think that is maybe what your first paragraph is intended to address, but it is currently not doing so.) I still don't really think it adds anything to the LOCI, but it would be less harmful to be direct. And CONCISE.

ayl12 wrote:If you need additional help editing your writing and improving upon your ideas, I would highly recommend having your writing looked at by Brian from Gurufi.com. He has tons of writing experience. He does an amazing job with making suggestions to touch up your writing and give you ideas for improvement without stripping the voice that you have already created.

ayl12 wrote:If you need additional help editing your writing and improving upon your ideas, I would highly recommend having your writing looked at by Brian from Gurufi.com. He has tons of writing experience. He does an amazing job with making suggestions to touch up your writing and give you ideas for improvement without stripping the voice that you have already created.